


Civil Conquest

by clari_clyde



Category: The Eagle (2011), The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: BDSM, D/s, Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clari_clyde/pseuds/clari_clyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Esca begins to wonder just how roman Marcus really is but he doesn’t know where Marcus is really from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Civil Conquest

**Author's Note:**

> Downloadble ebooks: [EPUB](http://fanfic.pinktisane.com/ebooks/epub/Civil%20Conquest%20-%20Clari%20Clyde.epub) and [MOBI](http://fanfic.pinktisane.com/ebooks/epub/Civil%20Conquest%20-%20Clari%20Clyde.mobi).
> 
> Crossposted to my LJ: [Part 1](http://clari-clyde.livejournal.com/302232.html), [Part 2](http://clari-clyde.livejournal.com/302576.html), [Part 3](http://clari-clyde.livejournal.com/302597.html). Written for the Eagle Big Bang, [fic master post](http://eagle-bigbang.livejournal.com/8221.html) and [artwork master post](http://ladytiferet.livejournal.com/25468.html)
> 
> Notes: Mostly movie-verse, including shooting script Cottia, but a few nods to the book.
> 
> Acknowledgements: Many thanks to the ever loving **lycanthrophile** for all the times I cried on her shoulder, **mskatej** for letting me inflict the movie onto her and for being the ever patient beta reader through many drafts, and **ladytiferet** for her beautiful illustrations.
> 
> Feedback makes the fanfic goddess glow. Anything you have to say, leave a comment here or [send me a PM me at LiveJournal](http://www.livejournal.com/inbox/compose.bml?user=clari_clyde) or [send me an email](mailto:clari_clyde@livejournal.com).

[ ](http://lj.pinktisane.com/entries/2012/civil_conquest/cover.jpg)

  


[ ](http://lj.pinktisane.com/entries/2012/civil_conquest/main_characters.jpg)

  


By the lake the villa stands. Thick cement walls, clay roof tiles and a solid wood door impose themselves against the trees; the walls, tiles and door are thicker than Marcus remembers they used to be back home; the villa is solid to keep the cold away and maybe more and Marcus feels as though he were approaching Rome every time he nears the door. And in another moment, Marcus would pretend there were no tall, dark trees climbing for the rare sun and that the villa were built thinner to let in the warmth that blankets over the grape vineyards and olive orchards, which he would be walking beside and he would absorb in the warmth, as the plants next to him did so too. But in this moment —

“He wasn’t my tribe.” Esca tilts his nose up.

“But Esca. They are your people. You could have just calmly rejected his offer. I don’t understand why you had to be so cross.”

“I will not be short-changed! If he didn’t know the price of pork, then that doesn’t speak well of him. Those ‘deer’ people. Hmph. Better to describe them as ‘wolf’ people.”

“Esca! You shouldn’t say that about your own people!”

“As I said: Not my tribe.” Esca presses forward. “If I asked you to, would you fight them with me?”

“Yes, but . . .” Marcus stops at the door to the villa. “People should fight with their own kind, not against. It doesn’t matter if an entire people add up to a sum greater than Rome. She is a very patient conqueror. If they let her, she will conquer them, city-state by city-state, even if it takes her over a hundred years.”

“And you, Roman, are proud of that.”

“No!” Marcus stares at the door before him and begins to fumble. “I mean . . . I . . .” He lowers his head and sighs, but then raises back his head to state, “I should be. And therefore I am.”

“So proud of her conquests. So Roman.”

“Is that all you see me as?” Marcus’ eyes started to wet and started to gloss; his cheeks burned red. For a moment, Esca wonders if his words have slapped Marcus before Marcus asks of him, “As a Roman?”

“Your father was a Roman —”

“— I know I will never be a Briton —”

“— And you are a Roman —”

“— No matter how hard I try —”

“— Who else could you be?”

Marcus is frozen, unmoving, until he resigns, “You are right. All I wanted to be was a Roman. And so: All I am is a Roman.”

And with that, Marcus crosses the threshold into the villa, with Esca following.

  


Sitting on a stump by the lake, Marcus looks over the still water, its large reflective face looking back up at the sky. Tucked inside a toga, Marcus can feel these gentlest breezes — a thick tunic and braccae would be much better for protection against them — but the toga might protect him well from cold stares and whispers. And then he hears a rustle.

“Cottia?” Marcus calls out. “I can hear you. Please come out, I don’t want to hunt for you.”

A giggle comes from . . . somewhere. “Because you cannot hunt in a toga. And you can hear me but you cannot see me.” And then a fall from the trees.

“Cottia!?” Marcus looks at her picking up herself off the ground. “Your stola, was it already so dirty before you landed? And it looks a little small.”

“Shh . . .” Cottia holds her forefinger before pursed lips and then lifts up the hem of her stola for Marcus to see the hems of —

“Braccae!” Once Marcus has straightened himself from the shock, he begins laughing.

“Ah, you are laughing now, that is good,” Cottia says and then reaches into her purse to pull out Marcus’ armilla. “I did not want to give you back your armilla while you were sad. But, why were you sad? Is it because you were wearing a toga?”

He laughs again. “I am not sad because of the toga.”

And then she whispers, “And the hems are quite dirty.”

Laughing once more, “I don’t need it to be spotless right now. My Uncle will have guests for dinner tomorrow. It’s been a while since I wore one of these. So I thought . . . Just in case it felt too unfamiliar to me . . .” Marcus stands up straighter and stiffens. “One of our guests is a Senator and while Uncle he wouldn’t mind my wearing a tunic and braccae but . . . The Legate has seen all sorts of clothes and outfits but the Senator rarely travels outside Rome — and he is a Senator.” By now, Marcus is stiffer and straighter than the villa’s walls. “I should present myself as a proper Roman.”

Cottia eyes Marcus’ posture, all in line except the corners of his mouth tugging slightly downward and says, “You should find someone else to want to be.”

“Pardon?” Marcus’ eyebrows rise up and then realizes, “But, I already have! I’ve decided to be a farmer, as my Mother and her family. I am a Fulcianianus.” Esca tilts his head at the name and its unfamiliar ending and is about to ask of its origin but —

“We all have been farmers since even before a Martinus Aetius settled onto his land.”

“All your family? I thought your mother’s brother is a priest.”

“Yes, and that is very important for the farm. As I said, we all have been farmers since before my family’s history had been recorded.” Marcus stands firm on what he will become. “I am going to settle into what my Mother’s family has been.”

“No, that was different,” Cottia tries to explain but when Marcus’ brows rise again, “I told you to find something else to want to be and you have, from soldier to farmer. Now I’m telling you to find someone else to want to be.”

“Some . . . one?”

“Why did you let your toga get spoiled so?”

“It will be washed later.”

“And so?” Cottia looks down at the hems and frowns. Looking back up at Marcus she says, “Don’t try to be so Roman!”

“But Cottia.” Marcus protests. “I can’t . . .”

“Can’t be someone else —”

“— My Mother’s father told me —”

“— besides Roman —”

“— as his father’s father told him —”

“— or can’t be Roman?”

“— be as Roman as you can be —”

“— Why?”

“Because life is easier.” Marcus looks into the ground over the stump’s roots. Marcus looks away from Cottia towards the lake. The sky seems endless in the still waters and he can look below him to see a bird flying over. But water is not air — it must be pushed against to bring oneself to the surface else one drowns. “Being Roman is all I am allowed to be.”

  


[ ](http://lj.pinktisane.com/entries/2012/civil_conquest/marcus.jpg)

  


“Lunch will be a little late today.”

“Oh!” Cottia and Marcus flinch a bit at Esca’s sudden presence.

“Mother will call for me soon,” Cottia turns to leave but quickly turns back to face Marcus. “Don’t forget! Find some _one_ else to be! Remember because I’ll be back tomorrow again.”

As Marcus waves at her leaving, he asks Esca, “Did you hear that? What she said?”

“Yes.” Esca nods. “Everything from, ‘You cannot hunt in a toga.’ ”

“Oh.” Marcus looks Esca in the eyes. “And . . . What do you think of what she said?”

“You always talk about wanting to be with your mother again. You miss Rome don’t you?”

Marcus looks down and away for a moment. And then raising his sight to Esca’s face again, “Travel south to Rome. As you approach The City, the estates grow larger and larger — the fields become wider and the villas more stately and well appointed.” With the wonder in Marcus’ voice, Esca can imagine vast expanses that a large man like Marcus would feel insignificant against —

“But Rome is Rome,” Marcus simply states. “Rome is . . .” Marcus strains to find the words, straining to be polite, but all he can say is, “Everyone wants to be important, so everyone wants to be near places that are important. It felt like everyone was building on top of each other so that they can step on top of each other.”

“And this is the city that deserves so much glory?”

“It isn’t perfect. The different peoples could be united more. But they can be more united under Rome than by themselves. And then they can go on to do great things with Rome as Romans.”

“But if a people are under Rome, what does it matter who they were then when what they are now is Roman?”

“Couldn’t a Roman be someone else, besides a Roman?”

“Yes.” Esca presses himself forward into the space between himself and Marcus. “But never in whole. I don’t see how anyone could want to be two halves of two wholes; I would never want that for myself.”

Marcus silently nods and steps back out of Esca’s space.

  


After a silent dinner, Esca lurks in the shadows outside as the old man Aquila reads from a scroll. Not in a tongue Esca has ever heard before but Esca is not the only one to whom it is strange by the way the old man repeats himself, trying to shape his mouth into unpracticed forms. When Esca finally hears a “hmph!” he peers into the room. Aquila is still hunched over the table, scroll still unrolled, and beside the scroll are two letters.

“Ah, Esca. Come in. Letters from Marcus’ mother and this one is for him, would you mind?” Aquila waves Esca in and when he is close enough to peer onto the scroll, the old man says, “The Greek tongue. It is Greek to me.” And when that earns a smile from Esca, “Yes, this is in anticipation for tomorrow night’s dinner guests. You are free to think of me however you wish.”

“As . . . shallow?”

“Well, yes, it is. It won’t be of any use to me after tomorrow evening, will it?”

“Unlike British.”

“Yes, unlike British.” Aquila starts to roll the scroll and asks, “How is Marcus’ progress? Will he need someone to practice with?”

“I think . . .” Esca smirks. “ . . . It might be better for both him and you that he teach you.”

“Oh do you?” Aquila looks down on the scroll on his hands. “When he said, ‘I want to learn the British tongue,’ I wondered if he wouldn’t do well. My sister and her husband almost got an extra Latin tutor for him. And then came the chain of Greek tutors. None of them ever did him any good.”

“His pronunciation is very good,” Esca says. “As long as he doesn’t stumble for a word he doesn’t know yet, one would think he grew up here. Not sounding different is very important to him, I think. And, he says he’d learn faster if I wrote it so that he can see it. But he understood everything today when we tried to sell the pig meat — or, rather, when I tried to sell the pig meat.”

“That didn’t go so well from the way the two of you sounded.”

“I finally got a fair price by telling the buyer to his face that he was either a stupid coward or a cowardly wolf. Marcus thinks I should have been more polite.”

“Hm . . .” Aquila nods in agreement.

“I . . .” Esca pauses before an unknown territory. Those large expanses that filled Marcus with awe, were they near or far from Rome? “I don’t know where Marcus comes from.”

“I don’t either.” Aquila sighs and closes a chest’s lid over the scroll of strange words. “No clue how Marcus approaches the world. For example: I bought you because I thought he was interested in you. I remember being at the gladiator school thinking, ‘I am about to buy a gladiator — a _gladiator._ ’ And when Stephanos told me that he saw a fresh bruise on your chest, I knew I’d made the biggest mistake. He hasn’t told you why he saved you, has he?”

“He said he already told you, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

“Maybe at first, but sometimes I wonder if he now does . . .” Aquila stares into the empty air between himself and Esca. “Maybe if I knew where he wanted to be.”

“Rome?”

Aquila frowns at the suggestion. “His father is dead. I am here. And his Uncle Lepidus threw him out and disowned him and my sister let him. Probably, there never was a home for him in Rome, especially not after Lepidus sold my brother’s house, the one he inherited from our father. Sometimes, I think about adopting him. But I don’t know if he wants to stay here in Britain and maybe I am being selfish for wanting him to stay here.”

“I think if you were selfish he wouldn’t even be here.”

Aquila stills himself for a moment to let the words linger in the space. “Thank you Esca.”

  


Esca arrives in Marcus’ room to find Marcus sitting on his bed.

“I was waiting for you — oh, is that from my Mother!?”

Esca sits on the bed next to Marcus. When the letter is in Marcus’ hand and he can peer over Marcus’ forearm, he asks if he may and when Marcus nods, he begins, “My . . . dear . . . -est . . . dearest . . . Mar . . . Marce?”

“It is . . .” Marcus straightens and stiffens. “My Mother calls me that.”

“Do you want her to call you that?” Esca asks but when Marcus doesn’t answer nor even move, “Do you want her to call you that, really?” When Marcus nods, Esca says, “I’ve never heard that before, and it does sound strange. But if that is what you want your mother to call you, I won’t say anything about it. Tell me about it.” When Marcus does not make a move, he forwards himself, “Please?”

“I have my Father’s name, as he wanted, of course.” Marcus’ grip on the letter tightens. “ ‘Marcus’ and ‘Marce’ are the same name. Once, he was the god of farming but as Rome grew, Mars became a god of war. But my Mother said, ‘A plant cannot grow to its full height unless its roots grow deeper.’ And so she calls me ‘Marce.’ ”

Esca reaches for Marcus’ hands, takes them into his own. After a few moments of Esca’s hands covering Marcus’, Marcus relaxes his hold on the letter.

“You read faster,” Esca says. “What does she say?”

“She says: ‘My dearest Marce. I have been thinking about wanting you to visit me. Perhaps if you leave when you receive this letter, you would arrive before winter. Stay a few months. Leave when the worst of winter is over. I’ve written to your Uncle as he should have the final say and with the advice of a doctor. But, oh, I must be true. I do want to see you again. And you asked about Martinus Aetius and Lavinia Maro. I have found some more stories about them as you asked. Perhaps I should tell them in my next letter to you. Or, if you visit me, you can hear them for yourself from not-so-distant family. Love always, Mother.’ ”

“I hope you get your Uncle’s permission,” Esca says. “We should go see your mother.”

“ ‘We’?” Marcus turns to face Esca.

“I will be your freedman. Should I not come along?”

“I . . .” Marcus looks down at the letter again. “I want to go home so much. I want to see my Mother so much. And I want you to join me. But . . .” Marcus’ grip on the letter tightens. “I don’t know what you would think.”

“And if I promise that I will not say anything about anyone being Roman?”

“I am not worried about that.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

Marcus stares at the letter a moment before standing up from the bed to place the letter on a desk.

“Marcus?”

“Yes?”

“I made you a promise. You know my word is good, don’t you?”

“I know.”

“My word was good because you saved my life,” Esca says. “And it’s even better now that I’m thankful that you saved my life.” And when Marcus smiles, Esca adds, “Even though I don’t know why . . .”

Once seated at the bed again, Marcus whispers his answer, “The gladiator games were supposed to be a funeral rite. When someone important died, two of their slaves fought to the death for the honor to accompany them into the afterlife, and the blood would appease the gods.” Reaching for Esca’s hand, Marcus continues, “Esca. You stared down death. But there was no important person who had passed on for you to accompany, and there were no gods who needed to be appeased. Just mere humans passing by idle moments.”

“I wanted to die. That is not brave.”

“Romans believe that to stare at death without flinching is brave and honorable. They have at least that about gladiator games right.”

 _They aren’t right about their gladiator games?_ Esca thinks to himself. _Who are these Romans who take and corrupt their own ways?_

“Do not stop me from getting into your bed,” Esca commands when Marcus leans back to get into his bed.

Marcus reaches his hand to Esca’s heart, lets it linger there a few moments. “I won’t.”

“Tomorrow, the day will be uneventful.” Esca places his hands over Marcus’. “But I am sure that in the evening, Placidus will tire us —”

“Or anger us?”

“Hmph. You think he has more to say about your father?” Esca settles into the space Marcus has made for him.

“He could say things about my Mother?”

“He doesn’t know your mother. What could he say about her? Should we be so cynical?”

“Yes. Cynical enough to expect him to talk about my Grandmother even. All while calling you ‘barbarian.’ ”

“Better he call me a ‘barbarian’ than a ‘slave.’ ”

“He’ll never see that you never stopped owning your own spirit.”

Esca turns his head to face Marcus. “Is that what you think of me?”

“Yes?” Marcus nods to Esca. “When you told me about your family, I should have freed you then. But I was selfish and I didn’t want to lose you. I’m sorry.”

Esca props himself up so his head is above Marcus’ and whispers, “No need to say sorry.” Esca lowers himself to Marcus. Behind soft, cushioning lips, there is a tongue Esca wants to savor —

“Don’t.” Marcus turns from Esca to look up to the ceiling. “You’ll be a citizen soon.”

“Another Roman.” Esca sinks and settles himself back into the space next to Marcus.

“I’m sorry about our fight earlier,” Marcus says. “I should have remembered what my Grandmother said. Even if its people is sacked and plundered at the end of the siege, it does not mean the city shouldn’t have tried. From defeat to plunder, those two, three years of holding strong are what one should fight for.”

Esca can only nod at the ceiling before his eyes will themselves close; he hopes, after daybreak, he will remember to ask whom Rome fought against. His consciousness fades as he wonders what Marcus thinks of those people.

  


“Cottia! You’re early!” Marcus, with Esca behind him finds Cottia on the stump by the lake, on her lap lay a pristine white fabric. Along the fabric’s edge runs a band of blue lines, swirling together until an end at one edge under Cottia’s hand and needle. “We ate lunch very early so we would wait for you.”

“Yes, I have been here since after breakfast. And you are not wearing your toga.”

“It was washed yesterday afternoon. I want it to dry in the sun for as long as possible.”

“Because I wanted to see it. I wanted to work on this toga and compare them. But oh well, besides, I am done after I knot this.”

“Whom is it for? It’s small and I thought you had no brothers.”

“I wanted this to be for me,” Cottia says and when Marcus raises an eyebrow, “Until my nurse told me what kind of woman wears a toga.” Cottia frowns. “And then she made a comment about British women.”

“You didn’t tell your mother’s husband?” Marcus asks. “I think he wouldn’t stand for such an insult about his wife and step-daughter.”

“No he wouldn’t!  . . . But once I knew, I didn’t want him to find out about my toga.”

The blue threads on Cottia’s lap sparkle in the sun, rivaling the lake. If she threw the fabric and threads over the lake, how far would they go? On a stormy day, could they fly all the way over to the other side? On a calm day, would they sink into the edge and cling there?

“Do you wish your mother had never married your step-father?” Marcus asks.

“My father died when I was very young and I don’t remember him.” Cottia’s finger traces a line weaving under and over other lines. “There are some girls who were born in Rome, and other Roman girls born here, and British girls. And sometimes, I understand them; and sometimes, I don’t understand them.” Finally, her finger stops tracing and she lays her hand flat over a section. “But if I were one and only one type of girl, I would understand that one all the time and the others none of the time. And I cannot imagine not knowing anything about anyone else.” Looking up to Marcus, she asks, “And you? What do you think of British girls?”

Marcus sits down before Cottia. “I think the women are regal. They hold themselves very high.”

“Whereas, Roman women never even leave the home.”

“Romans prefer women that way, don’t they?” Marcus turns inward for a moment, then says, “Mother would probably say that I sound exactly like Father talking about the women of Clusium.”

“Tell me about Clusium!”

“It is 60 leagues north of Rome. Its surrounding hills roll gently and it’s much calmer than Rome. For Father, who grew up in Rome, he found it . . . perhaps a little boring.”

“Is that why he went into the army? To find adventure?”

“Oh no. If he wanted that, he could have just gone back home to Rome. His plan was to rise through the ranks, become a centurion, a primus pilus, and become an equestrian that way.”

Marcus quiets himself. Then he lets his eyes follow a blue line as it swirls downward over and under other blue lines until it turns upward again over and under other blue lines. And next to it, another line doing the same. He wonders if they had ends or if they didn’t, wonders if they are all the same line made from the same thread. “What does the blue border mean?”

“Does it have to mean something?”

“Well, for example, a Tribune Laticlavus, he is of senatorial rank so he has the broad band stripe. And the Tribuni Angusticlavii, they are equestrian so they have narrow band stripes. The band says who you are.”

“So, then who would wear this?”

Marcus eyes the line, weaving over and under, in and around itself. He feels pulled towards this line that crosses and divides itself until he feels it tighten and loosen in a pulse within him. He reaches for it, but a constriction in his heart stops his reach but he can say, “One of us should wear it.”

Cottia eyes Esca from top to bottom. “It doesn’t suit Esca . . .”

“The blue pattern is beautiful. But I will not wear a toga.”

And then she eyes Marcus, “But will it suit you?”

Esca laughs. “He will not fit into a child’s garment.”

Marcus holds his hands up towards Cottia and asks, “May I?”

Her eyes light up. “So you will wear it!?”

Marcus throws one end over one shoulder, the other end over the other shoulder.

“Would you wear this to dinner tonight?” Esca asks as he walks over to Marcus with a brooch for draped cloth. “It’s much more simple.”

Cottia just laughs. “Marcus, what is wrong with you? You are blushing like a Roman maiden.”

“I do not blush —”

“You are blushing even more!” Cottia laughs harder.

“And where did you see this?” Esca smirks. “On a brothel wall painting?”

“No.” Marcus answers. “I saw it on a tomb wall painting.” He grows hotter with a memory of the draped figure and next to it, the two men naked, performing in the open field an act too polite to mention, or even remember.

“Was this tomb so cold that people needed ways to keep warm?” Esca whispers into a cupped hand towards Marcus face after touching a hot cheek. He is about to reach for another cheek but then —

He steps behind Marcus, “Should I pin this behind —”

  


“Young master!” Stephanos glares at the drape.

“Oh no. I must take this off now.” Marcus crumples the drape in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Cottia asks. “Do you want me to take this from you?”

Marcus shakes his head no and hands the threads to Cottia and waves her off.

“Perhaps it is time for you and Esca to start getting ready for dinner?” Stephanos heads back to the villa with Marcus and Esca behind.

Halfway there, Marcus stops his steps, stops following to state, “Esca and Cottia saw and thought nothing of it.”

Stephanos stops, turns to face Marcus, the glare on his face softening into a frown. “What you did with the toga was so scandalous. I know you thought you were having fun. And perhaps with your finding the eagle, your reputation is more highly regarded now. But it would be wise to not do anything to jeopardize that.” Turning back towards the villa, Stephanos says one last thing with his back to Marcus, “Even though I should, I won’t tell your Uncle.”

Instead of following Stephanos, Marcus walks another path. Esca notices him stepping carefully, trying to not make a sound or leave tracks except for his limp that betrays his attempts.

“I should have worn it.” Esca calls after Marcus. “I am not yet free and I do not know what this means and I am the younger man —”

“— A young man is still a man.” Marcus turns, but not enough to face Esca. Then he turns back on his way.

“Where are you going?” Esca asks.

“To be alone . . .”

After Marcus takes a few more steps on his own path, Esca dashes after Stephanos and finds him in the kitchen.

“What was so wrong with what Marcus did!?”

“Only such scandalous people wear that.”

“What people? And how were they scandalous?”

“Don’t let Marcus dress like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . Like a whore.” Stephanos’ face twists and distorts before settling into sternness.

“I have never seen a prostitute, man or woman, dress so. Tell me where they do.”

“That does not matter. No one dresses so anymore.”

“Then it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters . . .” Stephanos wags a finger. “Slave or freedman, it is in your better interest to maintain the young master’s reputation if he cannot.”

“ _I_ will decide what is in my better interest.”

“And who will decide what is in the young master’s better interest?”

“Marcus.” And when the old slave scowls, Esca stands up for Marcus. “Marcus will do so as he chooses to.” And Esca turns and leaves at that.

  


[ ](http://lj.pinktisane.com/entries/2012/civil_conquest/esca.jpg)

  


“Esca,” Aquila calls from inside the atrium as Esca passes. “Will you join Marcus in the bath? And before you go, I have a question.”

“Yes?” Esca asks, stepping into the atrium to stare at the little pool of water with the old man.

“Marcus’ mother wishes to see him again, and she should, even if only for one last time. I just need to know when you and Marcus will leave. But we can get into that tomorrow.”

“Will Marcus want me to go with him?” Esca asks.

“Why not?”

Esca nods. But before turning to leave, he asks, “Would I intrude if? . . .” Esca lets his question trail in uncertainty until Aquila nods him on. “May I ask about Marcus’ mother and his name?”

“Marcus’ name!” Aquila shakes his head sideways. “What a mess that was. She didn’t see it as her lack of right to give him his father’s name. No, she saw it as her right to give him hers. My sister, the only sensible thing she had ever done was to write to our brother. Advocates were involved! The fastest messengers were hired! At great cost! In the end, a judge ruled that she had Roman law on her side but his father had Roman tradition on his. And as long as he claimed Marcus, he should name him as he wished. Besides, everyone knows that it’s always in a child’s best interest to have their father’s name. Of course!” Aquila sighs. “But the Fates. They’re quite tricksters, aren’t they? Never mind straight lines. Sometimes, I think they quite prefer tangled and knotted threads.”

“Maybe they have a design in the tangles?”

“Perhaps they do. But then what did they want for Marcus? I still wonder if he was meant to be named Maximus after his mother.”

“What name would Marcus choose himself?”

“I think Marcus would be proud to have his mother’s name. She’s quite proud like her mother. After Marcus’ Uncle Lepidus threw him off of the estate and disowned him, as soon as she heard, she rode her horse all the way to Rome to slap Lepidus in the face. ‘Do not blame the young and naïve for the lies and broken promises of an adult who should know better than to act so dishonorably.’ My sister and her husband were barren but, perhaps it should have been so. Marcus’ mother deeply regretted letting Lepidus adopt him, and it wasn’t just about his selling off Marcus’ inheritance from his father. She wanted to bring him home with her but, by then he had enlisted in the army.”

“An uncommon story for an uncommon man. Does it become even more uncommon?”

“Maybe . . . Has he ever said anything about anything happening to him in the army? Anything at all?”

Esca’s chest tightens, pain coming back from the first time he had gotten into Marcus’ bed. “No, he’s said nothing ever.”

“Perhaps his mother and I are imagining the worst for no reason . . .”

“Master,” Stephanos calls out. “I have found some extra towels. Is young Master still at the bath?”

“I’ll bring them over,” Esca says. “I’ll join him now.”

  


When Esca arrives at the bath house, Marcus is already there in the dressing room, on a bench in the center. Esca’s eyes trail the lines from the dark strands on Marcus’ head cut short enough to expose the back of his neck. Esca’s gaze trails even lower down Marcus’ spine nestled in a valley flanked by well-formed muscles which curve into soft mounds in their relaxed state. Esca’s gaze settles lower, between two cheeks, and he feels himself pulled into the shadow between the crack and the bench while his memories pull him back to that night in Eburacum when Marcus sat on a pallet just so, shadows by the short candle dancing on his back.

“I wondered if you would join me,” Marcus says, a cheek red over his shoulder. “Or should I have not waited?”

“It seems you’ve already oiled and cleaned yourself.” Esca traces his fingertips from Marcus’ fingertips to his forearms.

“As best I could.”

“I’ll take care of your back then . . .”

“But let me do you first.”

Once naked, Esca stands still as Marcus massages the oil onto his skin. The touch is warm from Marcus having rubbed his oiled hands together and the touch grows warmer as Marcus’ kneads his hands into his skin, into his muscles. Esca looks down Marcus, now gliding the strigil on his legs; eyes falling from Marcus’ hair to neck to back . . . Esca must think of something cool, maybe even cold. Such as that cold night in Eburacum.

 _Do you need help getting dressed?_  . . . _Damned blanket has holes, perhaps we should wear extra layers under them._  . . . _I am sorry this room has only one pallet —_

“Marcus.” Esca snaps his gaze up. “I think today the caldarium will be too hot for me. I’ll just be in the tepidarium today.”

“May I join you?”

“Your leg —”

“Tepid waters will not stiffen me if just for today . . . I want to join you.”

Inside, the walls and air over the tepid waters echo only small splashes and then nothing. The same nothingness as in Eburacum when they first entered their room together to find just a single pallet. Then Esca broke the silence with Marcus: _Tomorrow morning, I will find work so that we can afford a room with two pallets._

And then back to the silence against his inescapable inner voice: _It is warmer together . . . But hotter than I expected —_

“Maybe . . .” Marcus starts to get up. “Maybe I should start getting ready.” As Marcus rises from the water, rivulets glide down Marcus’ back and Esca follows one down the center . . . Perhaps he now regrets choosing the tepidarium over the frigidarium. 

They make their way back to the dressing room where tunics and togas lie on the bench for them. They begin dressing, but Esca leaves his toga alone, folded.

“I should have asked Cottia if I could keep her toga.” Marcus frowns.

“I think she would have wanted you to have it,” Esca says. “If you had, would I be able to convince you to wear it tonight?”

“No!” Marcus’ eyes and mouth are wide open. “I . . . I don’t want to give my Uncle a reason to disown me. Especially not before I settle my debts to him. I owe him too much, especially for you.”

“He thought you weren’t grateful for having bought me.”

“He bought you for me for Saturnalia. It’s supposed to be a time to be grateful that we humans are civilized and have the discipline and knowledge to reap abundant harvests. But it’s also the time to make peace with one’s enemies and to acknowledge you could be them. And you were so . . . harsh . . . I thought I never would make peace with you. I felt as if my Uncle were setting me up to fail.” When Esca rolls his eyes, Marcus pouts. “Do you think I am being irrational?”

“Yes. Very.” Esca laughs. “You should talk to your uncle. Tomorrow morning before we leave go into town? Now, let me help you with that toga.”

“Wait.” Marcus reaches for the oil. “But first . . .” With a few drops in his palms, he then rubs his hands together, warming them up before touching them to Esca’s face, paying careful attention to only skim his fingers across the skin. “Your skin is taut; this might help.”

“Do you do this on yourself?”

“Back home, a mix of oats, milk and honey before bathing is popular. But Mother used to say, ‘A simple oil works simply.’ ”

“An oil like this?”

“Not quite. The first olive oils from the fall harvest are the greenest. Those are Mother’s favorites. They make everything taste and smell fresher and younger.”

“And you? You like that?”

“Very much, but it’s not my favorite. Look up and let me get the skin under your eyes.” With Esca staring at the ceiling, Marcus continues on, “In Hispania, in a town we passed there was a woman with an aloe shop.”

“Aloe?”

“Strange plant that grows in tall, thin, pointy triangles from the ground. But inside is a thick juice.”

“Sounds very strange.” Esca closes his eyes to focus on trying to imagine such a plant but is distracted by and focuses on Marcus’ fingertips smoothing his cheeks, how their movements slow as his pulse quickens. But opening his eyes to distract himself from Marcus’ touch means looking at Marcus. “I need to see it.”

“I’ve never seen one here. Anyways. A lot of the fairer men bought as much as they could for their burned skin. I never needed to do anything to care for my skin but, the shop owner insisted. I confess, I loved the way it cooled my skin. Maybe . . .” Marcus flutters his lashes. “I used to wish I could afford an entire jar for my entire body.”

“So, you liked that on your skin?” Esca blinks. “All of your skin?” Esca wonders if his skin is reddening under Marcus’ fingertips. Could it cool down color also? 

“In Hispania, yes. Here? It is not such a treat here.” Marcus leans forward. “I don’t know what I would want on my skin here. If I could find something warm to the touch . . .”

“I’d like to help you look for that.” Esca too leans forward.

Someday, Esca will unravel Marcus’ toga, not like now as he wraps the long, off-white threads around Marcus’ body. Someday, Esca’s hands will have their way all over Marcus’ body, no barrier between them as the Roman fabric separates them now.

After one last tug of the fabric over Marcus’ left shoulder so its end approaches but will never meet the ground, Esca and Marcus make their way to the villa.

  


Outside the villa, two tall, muscular, fair-haired and fair-skinned men carry in a trunk while two others come out of the villa to report to an older, dark- and curly-haired man, “Master, the slaves’ quarters is only one room, but there should be enough room for all four of us.”

“Very well. You two go and help in the kitchen. Servius complained so much about the slow dinner service with only an old, goaty slave and an insolent brat for the other slave. The other two will carry his things into his room.”

“Yes Master.”

“All four of them are Placidus’ slaves?” Marcus frowns. “What does he intend to do with _all_ of them?”

“Replace me apparently.” Esca smirks but then notices Marcus still staring ahead, his lightening color turning him into a ghost. “Marcus, are you cold? There might still be time to change into a tunic and braccae.”

“I feel as if I should be wearing Cottia’s toga. I don’t feel any more protected in this than in hers.”

“Marcus?” Esca reaches for Marcus’ hand, shelters it from the cooling air.

“As long as I keep this on, I should be fine.”

“Marcus. Esca.” Aquila calls out as he steps from the villa. “There you two are. Come in. You, too, Senator. Everyone come in.” Once everyone is in, he begins the introductions.

“Marcus. Esca. You both remember Tribune Servius Placidus —”

“Yes, we’ve met a few times already,” Marcus says and nods and the tribune nods back. Marcus smiles and presses his shoulders down to present himself as relaxed. But Esca sees the tension in Marcus’ back to hold that posture together.

“— And this is his father, the Senator Placidus.”

Marcus nods and the two grip forearms in a handshake. Esca follows.

  


Once everyone is seated for dinner, Senator Placidus is most apologetic. “I must thank you again for your hospitality. Hieronimianus thought the absolute highest of you. And then Marcellus found everything Hieronimianus said of you to be true. And now, so do I. You have no obligations to a friend of a friend. I owe you so much already and we’ve just met.”

“Oh think nothing of the sort” Aquila says. “I only aimed to be a mere engineer when I joined the army. And now, I am merely doing a duty to my fellow citizen.”

“Mastarna and his daughter are already in Calleva, staying with Hieronimianus. But Servius insisted on not staying with them.”

“From what I have heard of her, I’m not keen to meet her, ” says the younger Placidus.

“So willful, that Gaia,” says the Senator. “But it says something of the family’s wealth that they can afford to send her to school and think nothing of it. Though when Servius marries her, he’ll put an end to that nonsense.”

“Is she studying to become a priestess?” Marcus asks.

“Yes but that doesn’t matter,” Placidus says. “If — and that is an if — if I agree to marry her, she will stop her studies to be my wife in Rome.”

“But a priest is useful,” Marcus says. “Besides leading prayers and divining the future, if one is especially good at laying out the land, finding ground water, identifying plants or supervising engineers . . .”

“You want them divining your future,” the Senator says, “not sharing it with you. I already have a number of them in my employ. I don’t need them beside me in the Senate nor beside my family in my house. Besides —” The senator sneers. “A woman studying. Any real Roman points to the ideal Athenian wife who never leaves her husband’s house as the ideal for a Roman wife to model herself. My mother is the perfect example of an Athenian wife; we’ll make a proper Roman wife out of Servius’ fiancée.”

“You say that as if she and her father have already agreed,” Placidus rolls his eyes.

“I’m a Senator. And someday, so will you. Why wouldn’t they say yes?”

“If you’re going to arrange my marriage to one so ill-behaved and rebellious, just go all the way and marry me off to someone from Volaterrae, seeing that you don’t think I can attract a woman from Rome proper.”

Placidus turns to Marcus. “You haven’t been to their northern cities have you? Well, I tell you, I have been to Volaterrae. What a group of soft, defeated rebels. Their men; you definitely don’t want to be compared to their men; how soft they are, so eager to please their women.”

“You truly think that about them?” Marcus reaches for the wine.

“The northern cities were never quite as civilized as their southern counterparts were. But Volaterrae especially.” Placidus pauses to reach for a second helping of salad while Marcus gulps down his wine. “And their women are still every bit as ‘misbehaved’ and ‘indulgent’ as the tales of old about them. That’s true of the other northern cities in general.”

Thud. Marcus’ hand is on the table, gripped tightly around the cup.

“Marcus?” Aquila interjects. “If you are tired, you can say so . . .”

“I should retire for the evening.” Marcus stands up to leave and Esca quietly follows.

  


Once in Marcus’ room, he pulls a chair and places it in front of the door to the outside. Outside the door, the dark cloaks the forest.

“Marcus?” Esca brings over Marcus’ red military mantle. “The evenings grow warmer but not warm enough yet.”

“I don’t know if I should have worn this, or Cottia’s toga — as I wore it for you that day.” Marcus pulls the cloak to a tighter wrap around him. “When my father died, I felt the Roman in me die. Why can’t I be as Roman as I look?”

“Is that what you think?”

“Isn’t this how I should think?” Marcus turns his attention to the other door behind him and turns an ear to the murmurs creeping in from the kitchen. They hear Placidus ask, “What did I say?”

“Nothing wrong at all.” They hear his father answer. “There is a man who was weak even before his leg injury.”

“I know exactly what he thinks of me.” Marcus frowns. “And I know exactly what he’d think of me if he thought I weren’t a Roman.”

“I’ll bring some food for us to eat here together,” Esca offers when Marcus’ stomach grumbles.

“Don’t worry about me,” Marcus answers over the grumble. “I’m not hungry. Go back like proper host and save face.”

  


“Of course Caesar had the support of Etruria.” Senator Placidus’ words pound the walls “He was basically their native boy. Now there was a man who was every woman’s husband and every man’s wife. Only a man like him would have given them back their citizenship and — even worse — allow them into the Senate. After the Civil War, Sulla’s men should have taken, redistributed and settled all their lands. Not just Arrretium.”

“If a city surrenders politically,” Placidus says, “as some did, and the people Latinize their names and Romanize completely, then there’s no need for retribution.”

“Then Volaterrae,” The Senator rants on. “What a hotbed of rebels, they must have been the example of the fierce and blood-thirsty pirates those people have been known to be. That they still resisted two years — two years! —  _after_ Marius’ defeat was a great disrespect to Rome.”

Aquila chuckles and sneaks an aside to Esca. “If all ‘fierce and blood-thirsty pirates’ were so ‘soft,’ the world would be much more civil place, no?”

“Probably after it was sacked and plundered, there was nothing there left worth taking.” Placidus sighs. “Just as well, those two years they spent resisting weren’t worth it to them were they? Esca? What do you think? Should a people who’ve lost their citizenship not get it back?”

Esca only glares at Placidus. “Between your slave who’s lost his freedom and someone else’s slave who’s lost his, which one would you ask?”

“Why does that matter? . . .” Placidus asks.

“They were almost uncivilized.” The Senator turns the topic back and turns up his nose.

“You talk higher than your nose,” Aquila says. “You don’t think much of them, their nouveau riche trying to run for Tribune of the Plebs? I think very highly of people who can bring up themselves up. Especially those who can bring themselves up from nothing.”

“But if someone can move up, then someone can move down.” The Senator scowls at his food. “Besides, who are their newly rich? Maybe they trace their roots back to Sulla’s settlers. Soldiers are a rough and tumble lot aren’t they? I don’t think that changes by giving them land. Or maybe, even worse, they can’t trace their roots beyond serfs and slaves given land to shut them up. They were almost barbaric until Rome conquered their greatest cities and civilized them.”

“Almost barbaric?” Aquila asks. “Once upon a time, Latin speaking people were hut dwellers, stumbling around, until an Etruscanized bunch of them looked to their tower-building neighbors and decided that arches and paved roads and aqueducts were good things and lo and behold, Rome was built — walled city on a hill, just like theirs. Who civilized whom?”

“Yes, and all that, they got from the Greeks.” The Senator reaches for the pork. “Look at their tomb paintings. Some of them are wearing the Greek himation. Those must be their most important people. They knew then whom to pay tribute to.”

“Anyone of any importance and character must speak Greek and follow their morals.” The Senator says after swallowing a bite of pork. “Such as, women should stay in the home. My Grandmother is scandalized that Roman women are even allowed to watch gladiator games. It does not appease her enough that they are seated in the highest seats, furthest away from the action.”

“Well, yes, they are very bloody . . .” Aquila says before all eyes fix on Esca.

“I thought . . .” Esca starts. “I thought the gladiator games were supposed to be a funeral rite to see which slave would accompany his master to the afterlife.”

“Oh, that’s quite a lovely sentiment,” Aquila says. “I’ve never heard that before. Is that what your people believe?”

“No. Not my people,” Esca says. “He is . . . I don’t know where in the Empire he is from.”

“This is very interesting. Do go on, has he told you what else he believes?”

“He talked about Saturnalia,” Esca tries to recall. “That it’s a time to be grateful for being civilized. And also a time to make peace with one’s enemies.”

“I hope you meet him again,” Aquila says, “and find out where he’s from. I’d like to meet such a person with such beliefs.”

“I’ve never heard of such beliefs. Besides, why should it matter who believes such things when such beliefs aren’t important?” The Senator asks reaching for some meat.

“Because a Roman is a Roman no matter where he is from,” Aquila answers. “Rome is more than just the Latin speaking people. My brother taught me that.”

“Wait,” Placidus turns to Esca. “Where did you meet a man who believed that about Saturnalia? I want to meet him.”

Esca looks Placidus straight in the eye but merely shrugs his shoulders.

“Tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Esca glares. “I don’t know where he’s from.”

“That’s too bad.” Placidus stops a moment to stuff some beef into his mouth. “I can help you find out.”

Esca merely glares.

“Well. Aquila has just mentioned earlier that you are to get your manumission papers signed tomorrow. And of how hard he lobbied and petitioned for your citizenship. Therefore, you must come to Rome.”

“I don’t see a reason for me to go to Rome.” Esca says.

“You must! You’ll be a free citizen. You should see the city that you worked for.”

“I did that for Marcus. Not for Rome.”

“It seems,” says Aquila, “Esca’s loyalty is to Marcus and Marcus just happens to be loyal to his father.”

“Still,” Placidus says. “He should come to Rome to enjoy what a free citizen can enjoy.”

“I have heard Rome is quite crowded.” Esca shakes his head no. “It doesn’t seem like a place where one can move freely.”

“We can explore the areas around Rome. I wouldn’t mind going back to Etruria. Northern cities, southern cities. I don’t mind them all.”

“How far are the Southern ones?” Esca reaches for some fruits.

“Veii and Caere are less than ten leagues north of Rome.”

“And the northern ones?”

“Arretium is 105 leagues north of Rome. Volaterrae, 95 leagues.”

With Esca’s hand holding a berry, it stops just short of his mouth.

“But come to Rome. I know an actor from Volaterrae.” Placidus says. “I’ll buy him for a night for you.”

“And why do you know an actor from Volaterrae?” Senator Placidus asks. “We already have more than a few concubini. And the Masternas offered to put two, maybe even more if you would ask, young slave boys into the dowry and you had no interest. And yet, here you are, spending coin on an actor.”

“It doesn’t matter; it's been too long since I’ve seen him.” Placidus ignores his father. “Anyways. What my father said about their men being eager to please their women. Truly you do not want to be compared to their men.” Placidus leans towards Esca who is staring down at the berries he has placed on his plate. “Have you seen their wall paintings? Of course you haven’t. Men having sex just like that! They must have had no taboos. And you should see the tebenna they wear. No proper man should leave his ass exposed like that! And so,” Placidus leans close to Esca, “their men are eager but their boys are even more eager to please their bedmates. Their soft and smooth skin is a delight; they care for their skin as their women do. You will never have come so large, so hard.”

“No need to tell Esca what to think,” Aquila says. “He’ll decide for himself what to think of other people.”

“Everyone knows what those people are like,” the Senator says while Esca notices Aquila inhaling so much that he could explode from the pressure within.

Placidus continues, “To be doted on like that as if you were the only one in the world, it would make you feel like a man.”

“I am already a man. And —” Esca pops the berry into his mouth. “— if a man made me feel like a man, I would make him feel like a man.”

“Do men here marry other men?” Senator Placidus asks.

“Oh no,” Aquila says. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“No, that does not happen here. But —” Esca reaches for more berries and wine. “— Let’s suppose that men can marry other men.”

“Oh my,” says the Senator. “Some water, please? This conversation is becoming quite scandalous.”

“Tribune Servius Placidus. What kind of man would you marry?”

“All right.” Placidus looks Esca dead on. “A born citizen of reputable occupation.”

“Someone of the same class as you? Another Roman?”

“Doesn’t matter. As long as he made me feel like a man.”

“Oh, I know who you’d marry.” Esca presses forward.

“Not you,” Placidus says turning up his nose.

“I know not me.”

“Make me feel like a man. If you know someone, give him to me.”

“You’d never gain his favor.” Esca glares ahead.

“And there are reasons why men don’t marry men.” Senator Placidus speaks up. “Suppose men could marry each other. But then you’d have to get his consent. And then his father’s. Servius, no man nor his father would agree to what you proposed.” Turning to the man beside him, “Aquila? Your thoughts?”

“If I had a child, I’d actually let them marry whomever they wanted,” Aquila says. “But, I do admit I’d prefer them to marry someone of like mind and spirit as they.”

“Well.” Senator Placidus fans himself with his hand but wisps of air barely struggle through the tension. “This conversation is quite exiting. Perhaps some time alone to relax before turning in for the night?”

  


[ ](http://lj.pinktisane.com/entries/2012/civil_conquest/placidus.jpg)

  


Back in Marcus’ room, the door to the outside is closed and the chair has been returned to the desk on which a wax tablet lies open. Esca peers over drawn lines, weaving over and under, pulling and pushing against itself. Then, Esca sees in whole the dress — a woman’s dress from the curves — whose neckline and hem the woven lines border — not what Romans call a stola, but more fitted and with fewer folds and its hemline flared above the ground. Who would wear such a dress? Esca would ask Marcus —

“Marcus?” With no answer he then races through the villa when he sees a small movement in the atrium.

“Marcus?” Esca approaches the figure by the small pool under the stars.

“I wanted to see if I could see the stars in the water.” Marcus keeps himself turned to the water. “Winter has passed and there is no bull below me to slay. But if there were, I would hit the water, and just like that, the bull and I would vanish.” Marcus holds his hand still above the water. “But then so would the stars.”

“Just like the war god you worship?” Esca asks. “Tell me about his slaying the bull.”

“Another night?” Marcus asks? “Remind me and I’ll tell you all about Mithras, the god from the east who willed himself into being from a stone and who killed the bull.”

“He is not a Roman god?” Esca keeps his hand still despite the pull he feels to reach for Marcus. “Then why do you worship him?”

“To be a better Roman soldier?” Marcus taps the water and his reflection and the stars disappear into the ripples. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now that I am no longer a soldier.” Marcus looks down at the stars reappearing and wavering in the calming water. “But as an adult, to be a more Roman soldier is all I have wanted; and he is the only god I have worshipped.”

“I still don’t understand how worshipping a non-Roman god makes you more Roman.” Esca stands over Marcus and whispers, “But tell me another time when I remind you.”

“I heard you call me twice; but probably not to have me babble and keep you awake for hours.”

“I . . .” Esca stares down at his feet. “I panicked.” And when Marcus makes no move nor sound, he continues, “You seemed sad lately. I wondered if I should have called you as your mother did. ‘Marce.’ ”

“Marce?” Esca and Marcus turn to see Placidus. The candle in his hand in front of him casts shadows behind him but Esca and Marcus can make out his four large slaves behind him, each dragging their pallets to sleep on.

“My slaves,” Placidus begins to explain. “I want them in my room — not in the slaves’ quarter — awake and ready to work first thing in the morning.”

“All four of them?” Marcus asks.

“Of course. I need them all.”

Placidus eyes Marcus from floor to head, then places a soft hand on Marcus’ face near his eyes. Looking at Marcus, but not seeing Marcus looking down and away from his hand, he says, “I should have looked at you more closely. Join me in my room.” When Marcus stands still, Placidus lifts his hand off Marcus’ face to reach for Marcus’ right hand. Holding it there, he pleads in a more quiet whisper, “Please?”

In the flickering candlelight, Marcus withdraws into himself to not look at the tribune before him nor the four burly men behind the tribune but still hears a tribune’s order after feeling a bind from his hands to his wrists, a pull to follow.

Esca grasps at Marcus’ other hand, but Marcus slips away after Placidus. Once Marcus has made his way into Placidus’ room and is in the center between its four walls, Placidus steps into Marcus’ space. Looking down at Marcus’ toga loose and almost free over the former soldier’s body, Placidus can barely contain himself. He moves a hand to Marcus’ shoulder; about to push off the toga, he whispers into Marcus’ ear, “I want to see you, all —”

“No!” Esca yells. “He doesn’t want to.”

“Then why is he here?” Placidus asks. “He wouldn’t lie to me. We wouldn’t lie to each other.”

“Just with each other,” Marcus says, standing still, still withdrawn into himself, as much as he can away from the present; but he can’t escape the feeling of his space collapsing into itself. “What would your slaves do for you?”

“Please trust my master,” speaks up one of the slaves. “Please.”

“Would you tell me to trust you?” Marcus asks Placidus at hearing the imperative from the slave.

“Why wouldn’t you trust me?” Placidus asks. The shoulder of Marcus’ toga at his hand, he wraps his fingers around the fabric, grasping at this first layer of Marcus’ cover.

At this, from the corner of his eyes, Esca notices the slaves sitting on their pallets where the wall meets the floor. Their muscles tense; their mouths pressed into straight lines. The one who spoke up earlier opens his mouth, but after a split moment of nothing, he closes it back into a straight line. He glances sideways to the others who have been glancing sideways at him but now glance away. In front of him, Esca can see Placidus moving closer into Marcus’ space, pulling himself in by his hand at the shoulder.

Feeling the pull and pressure, Marcus guides Placidus’ hand off his shoulder and lets the toga drop.

With his hand low and between their bodies, Placidus stops grasping at the toga and lets it drop the rest of its way to the floor. “The tunic and belt too.”

Marcus tugs at the knot at his belt. For a moment, he holds the belt up, keeping it constricted around his waist. But then he glances up at Placidus looking down at his hands, down at him, at where decorum means keeping private, and he lets the belt fall down to the toga. Pulling the hems up, up and over, he brings the tunic past his head where from there, he lets it fall before him to the toga.

Placidus looks towards the last of Marcus’ covers, “The loincloth too.”

Finally, Marcus pulls at the knots at the strings — thick threads holding up the smallest piece of cover on his body, the thin piece of hide. Strings undone and unraveled, the last piece falls.

Marcus steps his body backwards out of the strips of leather of his house sandals, steps backwards out of the pool of garments to place the fabric between his body and Placidus.

Naked, on display in the center of the room, Marcus’ skin reddens under the glare.

“You won’t take him,” Esca protests.

“Why?” Placidus asks, his hand moving up towards Marcus’ body. “Do you want to take him yourself?”

“No . . .” Esca stares down Marcus’ body and finds himself wanting to burst. “Why would I want to do that?”

“To be more Roman.”

“I . . .” Esca stares down Marcus’ body still; a step behind the white toga pooled on the floor, Marcus’ skin burns as red as a military cloak. “I do not want to be a Roman.”

“After Rome conquers a people, they join in to conquer other people. But . . .” Placidus positions himself behind Marcus’ body. Drawn out to Marcus’ burning skin, he steps up as close as he dares; yet there is that smallest distance he dares not cross. “Father always says: Nothing more Roman than to rule over those who have ruled over you; conquer those who have conquered you.”

“In bed.” Placidus and Esca hear Marcus’ voice.

“In bed?” Placidus asks.

“You don’t notice how Rome can be both an enemy and a friend to her neighbor,” Marcus’ voice states. “In bed, together.”

“Together,” Placidus repeats the last word. Closing the distance, he places a finger onto Marcus’s shoulder, traces it down the toga’s downward path. “You could . . . With me . . .” And traces back up again. “Would you? With me?”

Then, Esca begins to look Marcus’ body from ground to head, passing by the body’s hard and tensed bulk of muscles, but he lowers his gaze down again to linger at where Marcus is soft. Inside himself, Esca still yearns to burst though, now not because of Marcus’ body but despite Marcus’ body. _What good is a man’s virtue to control himself when servicing another man’s virtue to control others?_

Placidus’ hand comes off Marcus’ body to pull up a seat. “Sit down so that I may look at you.” With himself at Marcus’ left side and Marcus seated lower and within easier reach for Placidus to not need to move his hand up so much, he weaves one hand through Marcus’ hair, tangles his hand tighter into the strands; the other hand, he runs down to his groin to hold himself back as he thrusts into Marcus’ direction. With his eyelids falling heavier, he looks down at Marcus’ legs placed together and focuses on the scars on the left thigh.

“I want to feel your scar.”

“Marcus’ scar is more than you can bear.” Esca steps forward.

“You.” Placidus looks up from Marcus to glare at Esca. “Do not . . .”

“Does the Tribune want a chance to prove him wrong?” Marcus asks. Looking ahead of himself to Esca, he straightens his spine and spreads his legs apart.

“How do you propose? . . .” Placidus cannot stop staring at Marcus’ opening legs. 

Marcus looks up at the captive glare down on him. “Esca,” he calls out, “If I asked you to, would you get my vitis?”

“Why?” Esca asks. He peers between Marcus’ legs and finds him soft and unprovoking. “Do you give me a command?” And when Marcus makes no move, Esca stands in his place.

“Stop.” Placidus looks up from Marcus to Esca. Seeing Esca stare him down, he turns back to Marcus. “What will you do?”

“Only what I would have done to me.”

At Marcus’ answer, Placidus relaxes his hold on Marcus. Touching down from Marcus head to the left shoulder, he gives Marcus a nod.

Esca shakes his head no. But seeing that neither of the others seeing him, he slips away to Marcus’ room. Once past the door curtains that shield Marcus’ room, Esca heads straight to the chest at the edge of the room. Inside the chest — under the red tunic, under the red cloak — the vitis lies. In his hands, Esca feels its mass in his grip, its hardness in his stroke, its knots against his callouses.

 _What would Marcus have done to himself?_ Esca’s grip tightens. _What will Marcus have done to himself tonight? _Esca imagines himself smashing the vitis onto a head. Marcus is his to protect no matter what. Marcus’ choices be damned.__

Esca takes a deep breath, steels himself before heading back out past the door and its cover. On the way to Placidus’ room, Esca can hear Marcus.

“A man cannot lead other men to where he himself will not go.”

Esca follows the voice continuing on.

“Can you endure as much as your men?”

Esca stops himself before the door to Placidus’ room to take a breath in and straighten himself. Past the curtain he almost stops on a small, thin piece of black hide and finds Placidus on all fours at the bottom half of the bed, feet suspended over the edge. The hems of his tunic and toga are hitched up onto his back to reveal his bare behind. Marcus stands behind and over, Placidus within easy reach. Looking forward and across, Marcus reaches a hand out to his side to Esca.

Esca moves forward to Marcus with the vitis but pulls himself back after comparing Marcus’ body hard everywhere except where it most needs to be to the hard vitis in his possession.

“Esca.” Placidus looks past Esca and squirms. “Why am I doing this?”

“Because you know you must,” Marcus answers. “If anything happened to the Legate, the command would be yours.” Marcus caresses Placidus, fingers skimming the skin from the backs of his thighs and higher, and whispers, “I give you nothing I wouldn’t have done to me.”

“And what would you have to yourself?”

“Everything you can take.”

“Everything. Yes, give me everything.”

When Marcus looks to his side past his hand to Esca, Esca keeps the vitis to himself. How dare Marcus offer everything to Placidus? But Esca sees Placidus’ mouth tensed into a straight line. Could Marcus inflict what he would give? Esca grips the vitis in his hands and tests its hardness one more time before handing it over.

Marcus places one end into his hand and raises his arm.

Whack.

Placidus screams into the back of one hand and reaches for a cushion with the other. With its fabric covering in his clutch, he exhales and moans. “Yes.”

“Yes?” Marcus states his question.

Whack.

Placidus tries muffling his screams into the pillow.

“Every soldier from centurion down,” Marcus begins, “has to endure so much. And yes —”

Whack.

Placidus releases another scream into the pillow.

“— there are the spoils to add to the compensation. But these are divided by rank. Higher rank, larger spoils. Yes?”

Whack.

“Yes . . .” Placidus yells into the pillow.

“Lower rank, fewer spoils. Nothing like what you get. No?”

Whack.

“No . . .” Placidus wails before biting the fabric covering of the pillow.

“But what I am giving you is nothing like what I give my men.”

Whack!

“Nothing.”

Whack!

“Let’s say . . .” Marcus teases one end of the vitis down Placidus’ crack. “You have no status.”

Whack!

“What are your prized possessions with no rank, no spoils?”

When Placidus gives no answer, Marcus taps one end onto the base of Placidus’ spine. “Hm?”

“I have nothing.”

“Not nothing. Sshh . . .” Marcus rests the vitis onto the bed beside Placidus’ right side then rests his hands on Placidus’ behind, covering light pink strips rising across pale, unblemished skin. “You can never lose yourself.”

Placidus speaks out. “What if I want to —”

“Discipline yourself. Steel yourself.” Marcus caresses his hands up to and around Placidus’ waist. “Show me your mettle.”

Once Placidus’ breathing has calmed to a steady rhythm, Marcus picks up the vitis once again. “Tonight, I give only what you can give.”

Whack!

“And no more.”

Whack!

“Do not,” Placidus warns, “make a coward out of me.”

Whack! Whack!

Placidus cries out from the extra shock.

“What are you more worried about?”

Whack!

“Being made a coward? Or being made a man?”

“Whack! Whack!”

Placidus cries out again but this time, he releases into the pillow.

Whack!

“Because from the way you tense every time I raise my arm —”

Whack!

“You are more worried about what you will get than what you will give.”

“Whack!”

“But I promise you —”

Whack!

“I am giving you all you can take —”

Whack!

“By the end of the night, you will know —”

Whack!

“Know what you can take.”

Whack!

After the last one, Marcus returns the vitis to Placidus’ right side but Placidus grows. “I can take more.”

“Then take this.”

Marcus brings one hand down to wrap around Placidus’ cock. Keeping that hand still, he brings the other down to fondle Placidus’ balls. Expecting cooler hands, Placidus gasps at the warmth blanketing him and he strains to push himself further into it.

“Still yourself,” Marcus issues the order. But with every fondle of Marcus’ hand, Placidus strains to keep himself behind. Though at least Marcus’ hands keep a constant rhythm and, despite his cock swelling inside Marcus’ hand, eventually Placidus can restrain from pushing himself into the warmth.

“Esca?” Esca gasps from Marcus’ voice, startles from his staring.

“Esca?” Marcus calls out again. “Would you bring some oil?”

Esca takes one last look at Marcus before escaping to the kitchen. After finding the oil, he reaches for the largest cup but pulls himself back before reaching for the smallest, the one he could wholly wrap his fingers around.

With the cup of oil in his hand, he makes his way, takes step after step after step towards Placidus’ room. Before Placidus’ door, he contemplates on how he left Marcus — exposed by virtue to be revealed in no potent shape.

With the image of Marcus branded into his thoughts, he would drop the cup of oil before letting Marcus give more of himself. Or better, he would push through the curtain and throw the cup to a head. Take what is his to take, Marcus’ virtue already be damned.

 _Marcus would never._ But really? In all those months after having given back the eagle to Rome, Marcus had never. _But then what is this surrender?_

Marcus the Roman, conquest for Rome. Marcus the non-Roman, conquest by and for Rome. Marcus both the Roman and the non-Roman, conquest by and of Rome. Conquest was never meant to be so tangled to unravel the line between conqueror and conquered.

Before this door, where does Esca stand? Esca can only stand himself up and proper and strengthen his spine before slipping himself past the curtain divide back into the room.

There Esca finds Marcus as he left them — Marcus still over and behind Placidus, still looking down with intent at Placidus with flushed face and writhing hips. His breathing starts to hitch and he sputters out, “Oh . . .” More words amble out over a slack tongue. “That feels good.” Lips don’t care to open. “Mmm . . .” Last words fumble over a lazy tongue. “Give me more.”

“I said —” Marcus grips harder and draws the hand around the cock up from the base in a bush of dark swirls; up the shaft and its darkening veins; to the reddening, swelling head; and past and over the tip at the end.

“I will give only what you can give.” And with that, Marcus pulls both hands away to pick up the vitis.

“Hit me harder.” Placidus’ words tumble from a lax tongue.

“No.” Marcus’ voice hits to the walls.

Whack!

“I am ordering you to hit me harder.”

“No.”

Whack!

Again, Marcus puts the vitis down and reaches for the oil. Dipping his fingers in releases a verdant scent of olives taking Marcus back to where hills roll under the sun, where distant memories lie untainted. He lingers there until the scent wafts away and he opens his eyes to the taint before him — No. Later.

Now, he spreads the oil from his fingers to his palms, checking for evenness before reaching to Placidus. This time, one hand reaches for Placidus’ cock while the other traces down from the bottom of the spine into the crack where he finds —

“Oh . . .” Placidus groans at the pressure threatening invasion into his body from which his body wants to collapse. “You will be the ruin of me.”

“I give you only the spoils you can take.” Marcus removes his hand from Placidus cock to the taint to search for a corded mass at the center. He keeps both hands moving; one follows a corded mass and presses for a divide; the other circles round and round into smaller and smaller circles until it is at a point to press in —

Then stops. And takes his hands away.

“Oh . . .” Placidus is behind himself, unable to press himself to the pressure. “I am so hard.”

Marcus presses a finger down Placidus’ crack and picks up the vitis.

“Yes.” Placidus anticipates the hardness. “Now will you hit harder?”

“No.”

Whack!

And one more. Before laying the vitis down.

Whack!

Marcus places his hands on Placidus’ behind, soothing darkening pink strips. Then bringing his hands closer to the taint, he twiddles his thumbs on it, up and down its center as the moment lingers; all movement in the room freezes except for these twiddling thumbs beating and kneading the taint.

“I wonder if . . .” Placidus squeezes his rib cage around his lungs to release the air inside himself. “I could come from this.”

Marcus looks down at the tense body before him. “How long will you endure this to know?”

“As long as you tell me to.” Placidus’ chest is still tight and tense and he struggles to get his words out with such small force of air behind them. “Anything you tell me to. Anything you want me to. Just hit me harder. Just make me come.”

Marcus keeps a thumb on the taint, weaving it left and right along a corded line. The other weaves up to find an opening. And when Placidus tenses up to him, he knows that soon Placidus will ask for —

“What is this inside me?”

“I have nothing inside you.”

“I know . . . But . . . I feel . . .”

“What do you feel inside? Tension? Swelling? Tingling? Burning?”

“Yes . . .”

“Yes?”

“You . . . I want you to take me.”

“What a dangerous thing to demand of someone.”

“Take me to where you want to go.”

“You want me to take you?” Marcus pulls his hands away and reaches for the vitis.

“I want . . .” Placidus sighs at the absence of Marcus’ touch. “I want to come with you.”

WHACK!

“Yes!”

WHACK!

“As hard as you can!”

WHACK!

Placidus bites into the pillow as he feels strips burn hot into his behind.

At that, Marcus drops the vitis, lets it fall to the floor to bounce before it loses all its energy. Marcus grips one hand around Placidus’ cock. The other has a thumb pressing into the opening as fingers knuckle, weave and knead against the whole of the taint.

“Oh . . .” Placidus breathes out, letting go of the force of air behind his words. “So large . . . So hard.”

Marcus takes his hand from Placidus’ cock to run a finger up the spine, and back down it, pressing into the now stiff and tense support. He looks down where the candlelight shines light off and glows from the sheen of sweat of Placidus below him.

While working the hand up the back again, he works the taint still with the other, pressing for a few more moments of kneading.

It’s in these last moment of kneading that Placidus comes undone, collapsing wholly as waves of warmth wash through and over, filling and covering the whole of himself with Marcus who has moved with him to keep kneading him.

The warmth will fade, yet it still lingers. If Placidus could keep Marcus hand . . . “Marry me.”

  


“They say in Etruria,” Placidus mumbles, “you work so hard because you have reveled so hard. But I find you revel so hard because you work so hard. You would work with me. Wouldn’t you?”

Placidus turns over to stare at the ceiling and talk to the air above him:

“Are you one to surrender peacefully or do you continue to rebel after defeat? Are you one to will yourself into existence from the ashes succeeding years of siege.”

“I am not an actor from Volaterrae.” Marcus answers. He pulls the hem of the tunic down. On the toga, the fabric closest to him, he runs a hand along the wide purple bar between them then grips it. He undoes the toga, unwrapping it from where it rests over the body, pulling it from where it is trapped under the weight of the body, until it hangs freely from his hands and he looks at the regal band in his hands. “But I will stay with you until you rest.”

“I mean it.” Placidus talks at the ceiling. “I want to marry you. If you were a woman — any woman except a prostitute or actress — the law would not bar me from you.”

“If you want to marry an actor, nothing bars you from leaving Rome’s reach.”

Placidus mumbles on. “See my Gaulish slaves. They follow all my orders. And so do all the centurions below me. But you . . .” He reaches up to the imperial band in Marcus’ hands and pulls on it to bring Marcus’ hold on it closer. “The Roman Empire had no better centurion than you.”

Marcus pulls back at the toga, his hands suspend countless threads to let their ends fall onto the bed. If he pulls across just a touch more, just the smallest distance to cover, these threads would begin to cover him —

“You would follow me.” Placidus turns his head from the ceiling to gaze at Marcus. “It would take an extraordinary man to command you. You would follow me. Wouldn’t you?”

Marcus drops the fabric onto the bed; threads rub against past the skin near his scar.

When Placidus feels his hand land on the bed, he keeps it lying on the bed for a moment before reaching up for Marcus’ lips. “You know I am no cinaedus. Don’t you?”

“I know.”

“Would you . . .” Placidus wants to press past Marcus’ lips, but he keeps his hand still. “It’s been too long since I’ve kissed someone. Let me kiss you?”

Marcus lifts his hand to cover Placidus’. He tenses it to pull Placidus off him but stops himself.

“No.”

“But . . . It’s been too long since I’ve kissed someone. Please?”

Marcus looks up from the toga on the bed between them and over Placidus’ body to the floor where his toga lies. Two pools of threads lie skew to each other.

“No.”

Marcus pulls Placidus’ hand off himself and reaches for the bed sheet to pull over Placidus. Finally, he pulls Placidus arms over so his hands lie next to his body over the sheet.

“I said: I will stay with you until you rest. Sshh . . .”

Marcus caresses Placidus’ cheek and keeps his hand there as Placidus’ eyes grow too fatigued to flutter and stay closed.

“I would follow you following me.”

  


Marcus lifts his hand off Placidus and raises his head to Esca — standing over the pool of his clothes, arms crossed over his chest — and a red burn covers Marcus’ body. Getting off Placidus’ bed, he makes his way towards his room with Esca pursuing him. When the both of them have passed the curtains veiling Marcus’ door, Esca begins:

“How dare you!”

“How dare I . . .” Marcus gets onto his bed. On his back, he looks up to and talks to the ceiling. “Grasp at the only hold I had on Placidus?”

“You shouldn’t have any hold on him at all.”

“That hold is all I have. Without it, what do I have to get his respect?”

“You have nothing!” Esca marches forward to stand over Marcus’ bed. “Just your body to give. How do you get respect from that?”

“Mother used to tell Father, ‘You have me because I have you.’ ” Marcus wonders what that would feel like. “Isn’t that how it should be? Is it wrong to want that?”

“With Placidus?” Esca looks down on Marcus lying on the bed. “I hate everything that you stand for.”

“I understood you the first time.”

“Having your people’s ways taken and corrupted by Rome. Is that the fate of a proud people?”

“It was our time to cease to exist.”

“Said who? Your Gods?”

“Yes. And not just them, it is the way the universe was ordered. Everyone has an end and we knew ours. So we be Romans now.”

“Or be taken by Rome at will. Your father would be proud of Rome.”

“My father wanted everyone to be accepted by Rome.” Marcus thinks over reaching for the ceiling, expecting the weight of it to fall onto him. “The eagle redresses my Father’s faults; but, there is no altering mine.”

Esca still looks down on Marcus lying and exposed on the bed. “I hate everything you stand for.”

“Only you stand when you say that.”

Esca thinks of joining Marcus to lie with him on his bed — nothing between them, except the woven threads of his clothes. Instead, Esca turns his back to leave Marcus for Placidus’ room.

Inside is just as he left it — pool of Marcus’ clothes in the center; and to the edge, Placidus in his bed and the vitis lying on the floor next to the wall.

Esca forces himself to the vitis and finds himself at the foot of the bed as Marcus stood. With the vitis in his hand, with its stiffness and length, he could push the toga down from Placidus’ side onto the floor on even level with Marcus’.

“Please don’t be upset with my young master.”

Esca turns to the source of the whisper, sees the slaves on their pallets looking up at him. He confronts them with a question:

“How far would you have gone to give your master what he wanted?”

“Our young master, he wouldn’t,” insists the one who spoke up earlier. “If he were the kind to, he would have used us the way the other tribunes who borrowed us have.”

“Borrowed you for what?”

“They say a fellator in the army is as bad as a woman in the army and there was a young recruit with a reputation . . . and if they had needed help keeping him down . . .”

Esca confronts again. “And how far would you have gone to give your master what he wanted?”

“No,” the slave pleads. “He didn’t despite your master’s reputation.”

“No one talks about it but everyone thinks about it. And it’s all the master talked about on the way here earlier today. He kept saying to our young master, ‘Don’t fall like he did; don’t be infamous like he was; don’t do what he did.’ ”

“And how far would you have gone to give your master what he wanted?”

“We wanted your Marcus to trust our young master.” The slave sits up. “But how? . . . Without stepping out of our place. Because you’d never —”

“I have.” Esca points the vitis towards Placidus. “And I will again as _I_ deem needed.” Esca moves to the center of the room to pick up Marcus’ clothes and sandals, passing by them and continuing his words. “Stepping out of my place was what Marcus needed and how I got my freedom. Sleep on _that_ for the night.”

Having returned to Marcus’ room, he would like to fall onto his pallet but Marcus is there, sitting on it with his legs slightly apart. Esca looks down, idles his stare down from the space between them up to where they meet.

Marcus reaches up for Esca, up under the hem, tugging down the waist of Esca’s braccae. “You remind me of the leg on which I stand. And for that, I must thank you.”

With the braccae’s waist lowered, one hand raises the tunic’s hem and the other undoes the loincloth’s ties, tugging at them until they are released from the thin hide covering and drops them — strings onto the floor, thin hide into the braccae.

Esca closes his eyes as Marcus’ hand works him. Warmth rushes to his core as Marcus’ hands sheath him. The more Marcus’ hands work him, the more the warmth inside him grows and projects from its base. Esca reaches for Marcus’ head, tangles his fingers into dark strands to cradle Marcus closer.

“Marcus.”

No response, except a peck of a kiss, innocent save for where it lands, and the moistness Esca feels wetting Marcus’ lips. Marcus lingers as Esca presses against the soft, plush cushion of Marcus’s lips.

“Marcus? Will you be the end of me?”

Esca feels the kiss again. It lingers as the first one until he feels a tongue come out to meet him — just a taste — until it retreats.

“Marcus? Do you want me?”

No response from Marcus except for one last kiss, tongue barring entrance until it weakens and lips part. Esca grips Marcus’ head tighter and tighter as he feels himself go deeper and deeper. And when Esca feels the warmth tighten and swallow him, he pulls Marcus’ head and pushes the whole of himself in.

“Marcus? I want to kiss you.”

With each suckle and swallow to pull him in, Esca pulls on Marcus’ hair harder, locking Marcus’ head in a tighter vice.

“Marcus. I want to kiss you.”

With each suckle and swallow, the warmth inside Esca grows and the tension tightens. Soon, very soon, his pleasure will shoot from him, through him and into Marcus.

“Marcus. Let me kiss you.”

Esca opens his eyes see Marcus but all he can see is the top of Marcus’ head, strands wild and askew from his handling, and he can see no lower. 

“Marcus? Do you want this?”

Esca expect an answer from Marcus, but Marcus still makes no move. Esca pushes Marcus off, releasing himself.

“Marcus.” Now, with Marcus’ mouth free. “Tell me you want this.”

Esca would look down Marcus’ body —

“You need to say it —”

Esca’s eyes lock onto Marcus’ face looking up at him with plush berry lips glossy from the viscous fluid secreted from himself and shaped into an inviting part. Esca wants to go —

Esca turns from Marcus and grips the base of his cock and stumbles to a corner. Damn the braccae that bind his legs. Damn the tunic that abrades the head of his cock. Into the corner, he releases himself and spills. 

Esca looks to his side at Marcus, still on his pallet, wrists crossed in front of himself to hide himself. From the way Marcus holds his wrists forward, Esca knows Marcus is avoiding touching himself. “Then why did I come into a corner?”

Esca turns to step out of the corner. “I know . . .” Coming onto Marcus, “You only needed to say it.”

“I have never needed to say it . . . Except one time.”

“Then tell me you have always wanted it.” When Marcus closes his mouth, he recalls to Marcus, “For the longest time, I have wanted most to say what I want.”

“You are a freedman. And tomorrow, a citizen. You can say whatever you want, have whatever you want.”

Esca nudges Marcus back and down onto his pallet. “And what good is that with something still missing? . . .” He climbs atop Marcus, moves up so they lie face-to-face. Lips parted, he lowers himself down to Marcus —

Marcus pulls away. Tense and sunken lower against Esca’s pallet, Marcus shakes his head no.

“You,” Esca says.

“What do you mean?” Marcus still lies sunken against Esca’s pallet. “I’m here. With you.”

“Are you with me?” Esca lowers himself down to Marcus, his body embracing around Marcus. As he feels Marcus embrace him, Esca wonders, “Then why don’t I have you?”

  


When Esca’s eyes open, light peeks from over the hills, peeks through the shutter to fall on the empty space next to him. _Where . . . How did Marcus break away?_

Soft murmurs drift by and pervade the room before fading into the walls. _Is it Marcus?_

Esca covers himself with his tunic and bites into a loaf of bread to settle his stomach before its grumblings can betray his intent. Then he tiptoes towards the study and stops himself before the door where the voices come through to him clear enough.

“Uncle, sir. We must talk about settling my debts. I have a list —”

“Come now. Marcus. Son. You have nothing to settle with me.”

“I have Esca?”

“And what about Esca? I put your name on the deed. He was yours to free. Unless? . . .”

“You bought him for me for Saturnalia. It should have been my duty to make peace with him. I don’t know if —”

“What’s that again? About making peace?”

“Uncle, sir? . . . Saturnalia is a time for making peace with one’s enemies?”

“It seems I don’t really know you, do I?”

“Uncle, sir?”

“I’ve been very dutiful to answer all your mother’s questions about you. But, turns out, I have been neglectful to ask any of my own.”

“There’s nothing anyone needs to know about me.”

“Nothing at all?” The old man laughs. “Lutorius and the other centurions always wondered about you — the hardest hitting centurion but the one all the soldiers wanted to be disciplined by. I’m sure he — and the others — would have liked to have been here last night even if only to hear your disciplining of the Tribune Placidus.”

“Oh no! You heard that . . . I am so sorry!”

“Sorry for what? Perhaps your only regret should be not having disciplined the Senator too . . . I admit: When I realized you were in his room, a rage went through me. But then, I had an instinct to trust you.”

“Uncle, sir. What I did was very unbecoming.”

“Chin up, Marcus. Son. You have done nothing wrong.”

“And I have . . . I have another confession. I . . . I wore a toga as a tebenna . . .”

“A tebenna.” The old man laughs again. “Toga. Tebenna. Shouldn’t you, of all people, know that a toga is just a tebenna — except it needs more fabric and it needs more people to help put it on so it costs more, because Romans can. I thought you’d learn from my example to wear whatever, whenever, no matter how nonsensical.”

“But Uncle Lepidus —”

“Lepidus what? . . . Should I ask what he said or did?”

“ . . . No . . .”

“Marcus. Son. Should I ask if he ever called you, ‘Son’?”

“No . . . May I . . . ?”

“Yes.”

“May I call you ‘Apa’? It can mean ‘Uncle’ though it really means ‘Father.’ ”

“Certainly. Marcus. Son.”

After a few moments of silence, Esca sees Marcus step out of the study. For a moment, Marcus’ shoulders are pressed wide and back to present his chest forward. But then that strength leaves him; his shoulders slump and his head supported by them collapse down.

“What’s wrong?” Esca asks.

“It’s just . . .” Marcus moves to leave the villa. “When I found the courage to call my Mother’s brother ‘Apa,’ the next day my Mother and my Aunt agreed that I would leave for Rome to be raised by Uncle Lepidus. Maybe I should not have asked —”

“You should have asked sooner.” Esca steps out of the villa’s front door. “And while you’re at it, teach me too some words. Start with ‘friend’ and ‘freedom.’ ”

“There’s no need.”

“If we visit your mother —”

“We are Romans. We speak Latin.”

“You speak it.”

“Only because of my Uncle.”

“And why does he?”

“Because he is a priest. Only they. And no one else.”

“A tongue is too important to let wither and die.”

“Our priests speak it as a sacred tongue. That is important.”

“How important is the voice of a religion when the voice of the past is muted?”

Marcus has nothing to say. For the remainder of the ride to Calleva, Esca looks down and forward to his hands on the reins, in the here and now guiding a beast of burden which could easily guild him itself if it chose to have a mind of itself except for its decision to follow Esca’s lead. But in short time, officials’ hands — as well as Marcus’ — will make marks on papyrus records to be said with a tongue for the future. But what of unrecorded words born not of a deliberate hand but of the instant of the moment. Which tongue should speak for the moment?

  


Stepping out of the forum, Esca and Marcus are run into by three men, barefoot and in unbleached, undyed tunics, and all crash into the ground.

“So sorry, sirs.” One helps Marcus up. “But we must find our master’s daughter.”

“Have you seen a woman?” Another one helps Esca up. “Her stola is the brightest white.”

“And over that, her mantle is the brightest purple,” the last one addresses Marcus but is unsure whether to hand him the scroll.

“We have seen no such woman.” Esca takes the scroll. “But I wish you luck —” And off they go.

In the distance, Esca eyes a red mantle — the woman wearing it parts the street crowds with her straight posture and head held high over a military red cape — and catches slivers of its bright purple lining. He starts moving towards her to better see her dark hair and tanned skin, darker than even Marcus’ after days of baking under the sun. Finally close enough, he finds himself enthralled by her eyes, slanted almonds containing dark irises.

He makes his way towards her with Marcus following until she notices them and holds up a palm to them. “Stop. Identify yourselves.”

“My name is Esca.”

“And?” She eyes him up and down.

“Son of Cunoval of the Brigantes.”

“And?” Eye to eye, she rolls her eyes.

 _What does this woman want?_ Esca answers her again. “My father was lord of 500 spears.” After no response from her, he adds, “I am the freedman of Marcus Flavius Aquila?”

“Identify yourself. I am still waiting.”

“I am Marcus Flavius Aquila,” Marcus steps in to state. “Son of my father of the same name from Rome, and my mother, Maxima Fulcinius Atellus, from Clusium.”

Now she eyes Marcus up and down. “You . . . If what I have heard about you is true, your mother’s family is Equestrian.”

“Yes. Even before Martinus Aetius settled in Clusium.”

“Who is Aetius?”

“A centurion primus pilus in Sulla’s army. He came to Clusium to claim his reward in property.”

“Your father is from Rome. But I still wonder if you should look more like an old resident or a new settler —”

“Aetius married the former landowner’s daughter — Lavinia Maro. They married the day before Satunalia.”

She stares forward at Marcus. “What a way for a marriage to begin.”

A few moments pass, then she relaxes into the moment. “Worlds farthest apart collide the hardest. But with all our cities now in the world of Rome . . .”

“We are all Romans in the world of Rome. But are we within each others’ worlds? My Grandmother pondered over what different worlds Volaterrae and Clusium are.”

“Then let me be one to bring us closer together.” She holds her hand out for a handshake. “I am Gaia Tarquitius Mastarna, daughter of my Father, Gaius, from Tarquinii but now living in Caere and my mother, Julia Pupianus Maso, from Clusium.”

Marcus reaches out to Gaia and notes the firmness in her hand and her voice as she says, “And let me dutifully apologize for being the reason for Senator Placidus and his son’s visit to you and your Uncle.”

“Then from what we know of Tribune Placidus and his family, shall I offer my condolences?”

“No.” Gaia looks Marcus straight on. “No condolences. My brothers are in Rome studying with rhetors. Eventually, they will run for Consul. Eventually, they will go into the Senate. But, you and I know that since the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, our numbers in the Senate have grown fewer and fewer. My grandparents have never believed Roman citizenship to be enough and if you know as much as you should about your ancestors, Martinus and Lavinia, then you know why. I will never be a Senator but indirect influence is still influence and I do this for my mother’s home city which becomes less and less prosperous with the passing time. So —” Looking still to Marcus. “Do not apologize to me for me.”

“He would keep you in the home —”

“— And I know _everything_ about my home.”

Marcus nods.

“And so. Let me apologize again. If in case we do agree to marriage, he may be your guest again.”

“That is fine.” Marcus laughs. “Now that I know how to discipline him, he should be easier to handle.”

Gaia unwraps one of the ropes from her waist. “So _you_ disciplined our Tribune Placidus? I am impressed.” Then she doubles the rope and smack! She doesn’t flinch nor wince at the hit nor the growing red welt on her hand. “I have disciplined only my peers in school.”

“I have never disciplined my peers, only subordinates.” Marcus stands mesmerized by the strength of Gaia’s hand, cannot take his eyes off —

“Marcus!” Gaia smacks the rope into her hand again. “Tribune Placidus —” Smack! Again into her hand. “— is not your subordinate. Not unless . . . ” She moves in onto Marcus. “You know the powerlessness of punishment without discipline. So then you know the power of discipline, even alone.”

“I learned everything about punishment from my first broad band tribune.”

“May I ask what you learned?”

“ . . . No.” Marcus looks down and away, holds himself still with tension in his body.

Gaia moves into Marcus’ space. Looking up at him, she brings a hand up to Marcus’ face, cups his chin in her hand and presses Marcus’ face straight to face her and then up. “May I ask how you learned about discipline?”

“My first centurion, Centurion Egnatius. He wanted better for _all_ his men.”

“He knew, so you know: Never punish for mere existence; reward for deeds and discipline for misdeeds.” Gaia’s other hand takes Marcus’ hand into a firm, tight hold.

“Your future husband will love you,” Marcus says with all his breath and firms and tightens his hold to match hers.

“Yes he will.” Gaia keeps her hold on Marcus.

Marcus falls to his knees, uttering strange syllables and Gaia drops the rope in her hand to cradle his head. Grasping at his strands, she brings his head closer to her. At Esca’s wide eyes, she cools herself with a deep breath in and explains, “He said, ‘If I were your husband, I would lower myself to worship you.’ How dare you, Marcus, how dare you speak such profanity in the old sacred tongue.” She tightens her hold on his head and pulls him up by his strands. “Stand up, Marcus. Any mere mortal human who is worshipped is obligated to worship in return.” Once Marcus is standing, she pulls him in for a kiss but he quickly turns his head.

“Marcus. Flavius. Aquila.” Both her hands now grasp his head. “Ever since your finding and returning of the Eagle; I have wanted to know you.” Before grasping at his tunic to pull him in. When Marcus still resists, Gaia pulls him down even lower and demands, “Do you follow the chaste example of your Persian war god?”

“How do you know —”

“Irrelevant. Do you?”

“No . . .” A word falls from a misshaped tongue. “I mean yes . . .” Words lost. Finally finding his tongue, “I do. But not because of him.”

“I know.” Gaia leans forward. “I know all of you already.”

For a moment, Marcus resists, his hands pulling her wrists away but she pulls back at the threads in her hands until Marcus ceases all his resistance and places his hands on hers. Until —

“I hear running!” Marcus breaks from Gaia. “Your father sent three slaves to look for you and I hear them from that way.”

“The house we are staying at is on the other side of town,” Gaia says. “I don’t mind returning now, but I would rather return later.”

“This way to our horses,” Esca motions. “Shall we walk to your house? You and Marcus ride the horses and I will lead as slowly as possible”

“Thank you.” Gaia makes no move to the horse. “But first, if you can help me reverse my cloak . . .”

Standing behind Gaia, Marcus catches the mantle as she pushes it off her shoulders. “Must you turn this inside out?” Marcus frowns as he turns it around. “I like the red,” he says as he helps her onto the horse. “It makes you look like an officer.” And when she is sitting high with her head nodded upwards, Marcus eyes the regal violet but he is captivated by the slivers of a bright flame which spy from the shadows at the seams where they meet and he salutes her, “General Mastarna. What are your orders?”

Gaia laughs. “Get on your horse, Centurion. I will brief you along the way.”

“Rome,” Gaia starts on the new path, “is under attack by the Greeks. Our fair city, she is in debt to him for his intervention when she was besieged by Gauls.”

Marcus raises an eyebrow. “They left Clusium to sack Rome because one of his delegates killed one of their leaders.”

“Perhaps next time, she should ask him to be more intelligent about it.”

By now, Marcus’ smiles broadly. “Perhaps.” And after letting a giggle escape, “Maybe perhaps.”

She brings a hand up to hide her giggle but changes her mind and following her, Marcus giggles openly until he breaks free into laughter.

“That is Rome that you are laughing at.” Esca wishes he had a riding crop to poke at Marcus’ leg.

“Have no doubt,” Marcus says trying to not break into more laughter, “That we would fight for the Rome until the day we die.”

“But we would fight for the Empire first,” adds Gaia. “Back to my plan: Rome is under attack by the Greeks. He must be secured to a location before being surrounded and besieged. If Clusium were to play weak —”

“— Perhaps he may be more tempted by Volaterrae playing weak —”

“— Good idea, Volaterrae then. If she were to play weak, we could draw him to her and then Tarquinii will intervene and ally herself with him. And if Greece should have any allies near, I will need a provocateur to divide him from them. Esca, what do you think of Britain’s ability to be a provocateur?”

“Excellent,” Esca answers. “As long as he can stay mostly hidden.”

“Then he should stay at the borders until my signal.”

“And how will he deal with Greece’s allies?” Marcus asks.

“Caere is more loyal to Rome than Athens. Cairo also. They can be persuaded that an alliance with Tarquinii is in Rome’s better interest.”

Eventually, they head towards a particular house among its neighbors. With a nudge to her horse, she moves past Esca to lead the way. “If all goes well, Tarquinii will lead Rome back to a more stable and rooted home and Britain should have no problem bringing Volaterrae to safety.” Looking behind her one last time before looking ahead again, “And if not, then there is no change for Volaterrae nor Tarquinii. But what of Rome should he be unsecured from his foundation?”

  


[ ](http://lj.pinktisane.com/entries/2012/civil_conquest/gaia.jpg)

  


“What will you do if you won’t marry Placidus?” asks Esca, walking below Gaia with Marcus in tow.

“I always get what I want,” Gaia answers. “Because I never want just one thing.” Approaching the house’s front door, she mentions to Esca, “But I know what the stakes are for you.”

“But do you know the stakes for Marcus?”

“Mistress!” A slave comes running up to Gaia and her entourage at the door. “Mistress! You are early!”

“ _I_ am early?” Gaia looks down at him. “Brago, report.”

“The younger Placidus had trouble waking and so they arrived later than we had expected them to. But as you were not here, he and this father felt free to talk about you.”

“And?” Gaia goes down into Marcus’ arms before placing herself and pulling him to lean on her.

The slave started to say, “His father said he expects to not compare you to Athenian women at all —”

“— As he shouldn’t. And where are they all now?”

“In the atrium.”

“Brago, care for this man because of his leg. Get a chair and place it in the center of the atrium.” With the Brago gone, she says, “In front of my Father! So they feel free to talk about me — not because I am not there, but because they feel free to speak as they please.”

“Yes.” Marcus nods. “They would talk ill of a man in front of the man’s father or son.”

As they step inside, they hear, “She’s finally here? And was she with someone? Though, whomever it was, they can’t possibly have been decent _men_  —”

“Father. Legate Hieronimianus.” Gaia sets Marcus down. “May I introduce the war hero who also found the lost Eagle of the Ninth Legion? Senator Placidus, I believe you’ve already met.” Presenting him in the center of the room, “And here be the former Centurion Marcus Flavius Aquila. And his closest friend and companion, Esca son of Cunoval.”

“You were escorted back here by these two?” Hieronimianus asks. “Wonderful. What a fine man Aquila must be, and his freedman too.”

“You think highly of Marcus?” Gaia asks. “Perfect! So do I. If we leave now, we can be at his uncle’s villa before dinner and by the end of the evening, we could have his uncle’s permission for Marcus and I to marry.”

As Marcus’ jaw drops, Placidus moves towards Marcus and says, “You can’t marry him!”

“Servius may have a point,” Senator Placidus says. “Such an arrangement may be gauche.”

“You gentlemen all know Marcus is a war hero and that he found the lost eagle,” Gaia begins. “But his mother was born of nobility and his uncle earned his nobility by the Coronae Civica. Hieronimianus, sir, I believe you can testify to this.”

“Indeed.” Hieronimianus nods. “I have and ever will.”

“However,” Senator Placidus interjects, “my name commands nothing but respect and reverence and Servius will inherit that.”

Gaia freezes, then nods to Esca.

“All Marcus’ honor, he has earned.” Esca steps in. “By his actions, not by passive inheritance.” Esca feels a burn creep into his skin.

“But you don’t know if his uncle would approve,” says the Tarquitius.

“I have heard his uncle say he would want Marcus to marry someone of like mind and mettle,” Esca says.

“And you think Marcus is closer to Gaia than Servius?”

“I can easily compare Gaia to Marcus,” Esca smirks, “but I cannot compare Servius to Marcus in any way.” Esca does not look but feels the burn now scald into him from where Placidus stands.

“And how does Gaia compare herself to Marcus?” Hieronimianus glances from the side of his eye to Tribune Placidus. “Gaia, do tell us all, especially for those of us who might not compare at all.”

“We both oversee our domains with love and a firm hand,” Gaia answers. “As firm as is fair.”

“How firm?” Placidus asks. Looking her down and up, he makes his way towards her.

“As firm as you need which is fair.”

“If you want fair, then — ” Placidus keeps his eyes on her. “My family approached your family first,” Placidus asserts himself. “Before you should even think of asking Aquila and his Uncle, our fathers and you and I should agree first.”

“And do we agree?”

Placidus balks, stalls, mouth open yet empty.

“I trust she knows discipline.” Marcus speaks up. “And that trust is earned.”

Placidus looks Gaia up and down again before —

“Then I agree.” Placidus reaches for Gaia’s hands. “I will be here for a few more months. And then we should spend much time planning our estates and wedding. And,” his fingertips reach hers, “Would you like to be married in time for Saturnalia?”

“If we can agree on how to celebrate the next Saturnalia,” Gaia takes his hand and looks direct, face-to-face, “then I will agree to marry you.”

“And we should settle how long we will live in Tarquinii before moving on to Rome.” Tribune Placidus looks his father straight in the eyes as Gaia takes his hand.

Esca, now well inside the circle brings himself under Marcus to help him to the villa’s front door. But as they are about to approach it, they hear Placidus trailing them, “Wait, Marcus. Just one last word before you go?” After Marcus turns to meet him, Placidus continues, “Gaia has asked me that if anyone ever offend you, that I speak on your behalf.”

“I won’t have anyone speak for me if they do not believe in me.”

“But I do!” Placidus reaches for Marcus’s arm and with a firm hold and a look ahead, “Last night: Only a most honest and honorable man would have cared for me the way you did. I do owe you my gratitude.” Placidus holds his line of sight to Marcus. “Aquila. If anyone tries to tarnish your name, then I with my family’s illustrious reputation will speak for your name.”

Marcus faces the man facing him. “And risk tarnishing yours?”

“Yes. Because I owe you.”

“You’re welcome, Placidus.”

Out the door Esca and Marcus step. On their horses, Esca looks behind over his shoulder to see Marcus following him away from the closest Marcus has been to home since leaving home. But that future would have led Marcus towards his past, the same past that pulled him from his roots. Away from one but to another future, Esca leads Marcus — to this future towards his past towards his roots, deep beyond the world of Rome.

  


“Wait!” Marcus yells after Esca diverging from the path home and driving his horse fast and off the road. “Esca, where are you going?”

“As far away, as fast as possible.” Esca glares ahead into the woods. Once too far in to be seen from the edge, he dismounts to hitch his horse and runs into the thickening brush under the woods’ thickening shadows.

After a few paces, Esca pauses, looks over his shoulder at Marcus stumbling through under thin beams of light breaking through the top canopy.

 _Follow me._ Esca heads deeper in under a thickening ceiling.

“Esca?” He can hear Marcus calling to him.

Esca trudges onward, his more labored march echoing through the woods, calling signals, heading towards smaller and smaller slivers of light still sharp within his vision.

“Esca?” Behind, Marcus stumbles to follow. “Esca? It’s too dark here.”

Still, Esca marches forward, footsteps calling commands to Marcus. _I know you hear me._

One last look behind his shoulders to see Marcus fumbling in the shadows. When he is far ahead enough for Marcus to be unable to see, when he sees he has lost Marcus, he hides behind a thick trunk and waits . . . until —

“Esca!” Marcus lies below him under the low canopy of the brush, eyes and pupils wide. “Esca? Why are you upset?”

“Why am I upset!?” Esca yells. “Why am I upset!?!” Esca pins Marcus down, all the weight he has pressing on Marcus’ shoulders. “I almost lost you!”

“I’m not lost.” Marcus grabs at Esca’s tunic. “I’m here, with you.”

“Are you with me, Marcus?” Esca’s thighs tighten around the trunk of Marcus’ body. “Are you really with me? Where are we?”

“Are we? . . .” Marcus moves his hands to cover Esca’s back, raises himself, his face to Esca’s, his lips searching for Esca’s. And when he can feel himself almost there, “Are we lost? . . . In the wilderness?”

Feeling the heat from Esca’s face, he turns down and away, buries his head into Esca’s neck; the strengthening pulse in Esca’s vein sends a warmth that seeps into his’ cheek. Daring to want more, he opens his mouth and presses it against the vein, savoring Esca’s skin on his tongue.

Esca moves his hands to follow up Marcus’ spine from base to head. Fingers tangling in Marcus’ hair, he pulls Marcus’ head away from himself to face him eye to eye.

“Marcus.” Esca holds in place Marcus’ head when he flinches back. “I want you.”

“What do you want?”

“Stay.” Still keeping his hands on Marcus’s head, Esca continues, “Stay with me.”

“I can’t stay with you as I am.” Marcus eases the tension at his back to lean closer to Esca. “I will never be a Briton. You don’t want me to be a Roman.” Marcus stops himself moving in. “And to stand as I want to be means standing for what you hate —”

Pressure. Marcus feels it on his lips from Esca’s fingertips. For a moment, they rest there as Marcus waits to hear from Esca. But no sound comes, only more pressure pushing him back. At first are only the fingers which he wonders if he should let them breach past his lips to silence him. Then is the hand which he wishes would break past his rib cage to reach into him, all the way. When he can go back no further, he looks to the dark canopy above him and asks, “Esca? Do you want me to lie here —”

Lips. On his lips. Hands. On his head. Esca’s hands brace his head; there is no turning away. The ground presses against his back; there is no turning back. With Esca’s tongue inside him, any word from him would only be dampened and his mumbles could only escape to be swallowed into Esca’s mouth.

Esca keeps his hold tight, expecting Marcus to resist. Except Marcus never does and instead, he finds his tongue met by Marcus’. Venturing in deeper, he feels himself sucked in deeper into Marcus. Finally he dares push himself in as far as he can go and finds Marcus wanting him in even deeper.

“Is this real?” Esca hears after breaking the kiss. He is about to lean in for another when he hears another question, “Is this what a kiss feels like?”

Esca moves forward for another kiss, again feeling himself sucked into Marcus. But then Marcus’ tongue begins to push back as Marcus presses himself against Esca and lifts himself off the ground. Marcus’ tongue pushes back gently at first, as much as he feels Esca allowing him to until Esca sucks in Marcus to swallow him.

When the kiss ends, they begin at each other’s tunics, pulling up fabric to reveal skin. Marcus kisses at Esca’s neck; Esca breathes in with each doting suckle, then leans back as Marcus works his way down from neck to chest and lets his mouth linger at a pert nipple. Laying on the ground between Marcus’ legs with his own now unwrapped from around Marcus’ waist, Esca closes his eyes as Marcus makes his way down and he can feel cool air swirling along on his stomach, hips, thighs . . . lower . . . But then a warmth between his thighs —

“Wait!” Esca looks down at Marcus, also now completely naked, between his legs with his mouth open and too near to his cock. “On your back.”

Once Marcus is on his back, Esca moves, keeping his hips over Marcus’ face but moving his face to over Marcus’s hips.

“Oh . . .” Marcus says realizing. “Oh, this . . .”

With Marcus’ hands stroking up and down his shaft in a firm grim, Esca can barely support himself over Marcus and when he collapses, Marcus guides his cock into his mouth.

“Ah!” Esca tenses at the warm and moist tightness around the head of his cock. “Marcus, if you keep doing that, I will not last long.”

But Marcus does not release, instead sucks harder which sends Esca grasping for Marcus’s cock. Head finally in his mouth, Esca sucks as Marcus does.

Finally, Marcus takes the whole of Esca’s cock into his mouth and Esca can feel the tension in his balls rising. But Esca is unable to reach to take all of Marcus’ cock inside, can only tug at the head. A growing tingle between his balls and behind under Marcus’ fingers send him even further and one large spasm in him sends the tension bursting through his cock.

“Oh Marcus.” Esca stops his deep breaths in and out with each waning spasm. “What are you? . . . Not fair . . . that I can’t . . . reach down . . . or up? . . . to your . . . entire cock . . .”

“Mmmm? —”

“— Ah!” Esca’s body tenses as Marcus’ hum zings through his body and doesn’t relax until Marcus releases him from his mouth.

Now free to move to meet Marcus’ cock, Esca takes it in, sucking it as his fingers work at Marcus’s balls. As he feels the tension under him grow and the deepening of Marcus’ breathing, he sucks a little harder bit by bit until he thinks Marcus’ balls have risen to the limit of their height and he sucks as hard as he can. When he can feel Marcus’ cock start to spasm, he pulls back a little but keeps Marcus’ head in his mouth, still sucking hard but swirling his tongue around the head. And when Marcus finally comes, he swallows up each spurt of seed.

Pushing himself off Marcus to lie on his back and look at the slivers of sky through the sheltering canopy, Esca wonders, “Could we . . . stay here?”

“And where is here?”

“Here, outside of town, outside of home.”

Esca feels Marcus’ hand on his, then hears him say, “I don’t feel outside of home because I feel at home beside you.”

Esca would smirk at Marcus, but why not smirk at the sky? “Then would you feel at home beside me when we do this outside Clusium?”

Esca gets no word from Marcus — only an unrestrained, free laugh. And that is an answer enough. 


End file.
